


When Falls The Rain

by Jesse



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, SUCCMADA YOU MADE ME DO THIS, There's blood and stuff but like nothing really graphic okay, i'm so sorry about this, uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7545609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jesse/pseuds/Jesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Still, there is something about dying that just sets a cold stone inside his stomach and makes him feel sick to think about it. Even stranger still is watching his friends die in front of his eyes, their corpses pixelating away, and then seeing them rejoin from behind a few moments later.</p><p>In which someone very important becomes a glitch in the system, unable to respawn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Falls The Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perfection_addiction_obsession](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfection_addiction_obsession/gifts).



The bullet that flew past his ear threatens to make him sick. It rings loudly inside his head, filling his skull with white noise and giving him a mild sensation of nausea. Reaching into his back pouch, McCree throws a flashbang to the ground, giving himself the opportunity to run a few steps backwards. Morrison notices his retreat, and steps forth to cover Jesse’s position, rifle blazing like the sun. McCree makes it outside, feeling the cold rain pelt onto his bare arm, soaking into his serape. He knows that Amélie never misses a shot -- she had given him a warning.

He takes a breather, waving on Mei-Ling as she pauses in front of him, asking him if he is alright.

“I’m fine,” he says, “just gotta catch my breath.”

She leaves him thus, heading back in to join the fight.

He doesn’t usually become jarred in the heat of battle like this. But when he’s up against people that he used to be friends with, sometimes it makes it a bit hard to focus. He becomes sloppy, careless. He becomes distracted enough to not watch Amélie as she stands on a rooftop, her rifle aimed directly at his forehead. It doesn’t matter; the respawn system is still functioning.

Still, there is something about dying that just sets a cold stone inside his stomach and makes him feel sick to think about it. Even stranger still is watching his friends die in front of his eyes, their corpses pixelating away, and then seeing them rejoin from behind a few moments later.

He picks himself up, removing his hat to smooth his hair back, and goes back inside.

There is nothing but mayhem happening inside the small building. McCree is immediately aware of someone charging him, and he has no time to reach for another flashbang. Peacekeeper shakes his mechanical arm from fingers to elbow as he fans the hammer, watching the spray of bullets rip into the grunt’s body, falling onto the floor in a pool of blood. There would be no respawning for him. He steps back to reload, Genji throwing a line of shuriken to cover his position as he does so. Jesse fires the revolver again, a single shot, watching the man in the old Blackwatch uniform crumple under the awning down the street. He would not respawn either. They were expendable personnel to Gabriel. Nothing was wasted on them. They are simply bullet sponges.

He fires again, watching Amélie casually step to the side, avoiding the bullet, and he fires again. His heart catches in his throat as she drops to one knee, hit. Her rifle is aimed again.

_Pshooo._

Jesse feels himself flying backwards from the impact of the bullet, only to feel his own blood seeping from both holes in his body, pooling underneath himself. It hurts. It hurts like nothing else. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Zenyatta, exiting the building and following Genji, throwing his Harmony Orb in the ninja’s direction. Genji must need it. McCree closed his eyes. He could just respawn.

“Jesse.”

Hanzo’s fingers touch his shoulder, his hand pressed against the bullet’s entry hole.

“.. ‘s alright, darlin’, I’ll be back in a minute or two.”

“Come back carefully. There are two enemy soldiers making their way towards the ship.”

His lover kisses him, ignoring the blood in the corner of Jesse’s lips.

Hanzo fades from his vision as McCree passes back into the system, rematerializing on the ship. He grabs a few flashbangs before heading out, using them to subdue the two grunts that are hiding near his spawnpoint as Hanzo had said. Peacekeeper sings loudly as he takes their lives, humming as he reloads.

The chamber clicks as he snaps it back into place, spinning it for good measure as he breaks into a sprint.

“Objective lockdown in T minus 3 minutes.” Athena’s voice rings loud and clear over the commlink, and it seems to give Jesse’s team a bit of extra pep in their step. They only need to hold this for just a little bit longer, then they can all go back home and drown themselves in champagne and peanut butter.

He rounds the corner, walking back into the fray, not even hesitating to throw yet another flashbang to the floor. Jesse quickly rolls away from the soldier, letting Genji finish him off with his blade. The grunt falls to the ground as McCree neatly regains his footing, skirting around another one, once again hitting Peacekeeper’s hammer as if his life depends on it.

“Six bullets, zero apologies.”

Jesse wipes the blood spatter from his face, feeling it burn his eyes as he does so. The elbow to his back causes him to stumble, unable to roll away. A flashbang, a scatter of arrows.

The first thing he sees as he looks up is Hanzo standing in front of him, arrow nocked to the string, defending him as he lies on the ground. Not even a second later, he hears the pulse rifle fire.

Hanzo’s body flies backwards, bright red blood soaking into his stainless white kyudo-gi. Amélie had given him no warning. Jesse scrambles to his feet, rushing over to Hanzo. One hand behind the archer’s head, pulling him up. Hanzo’s silvery-blue scarf falls from his hair, onto the floor, the tips staining red with Hanzo’s blood.

He was not even alive.

The archer’s body vanished from his hands, leaving behind the scarf, which Jesse picks up and tucks into his pocket. He will give it back later.

“Objective lockdown in T minus sixty seconds.”

Jesse reloads the revolver as he stands back-to-back with Genji, the nin sheathing his blade in lieu of his shuriken. There is no need. They have their objective. It’s time to go home.

Mei-Ling is holding Snowball in her hands as Genji and Zenyatta head up the rear, talking amongst themselves.

“Nothin’ to it,” Jack says, McCree glancing over at him.

“You had a pretty good grip on things, old timer,” Jesse jokes, socking him in the arm.

Morrison makes no reply, only waiting for the others to board the ship. He always gets on last.

Hanzo is not on the ship. McCree looks for him as soon as he steps in, but to no avail. Perhaps he had gone back for them? But surely their paths would have crossed.

“Hanzo, where you at?” Jesse says into the communicator. There is no response.

“Athena, give me Hanzo’s location.”

“Agent Hanzo is no longer within a five kilometer search radius.”

Genji freezes as he hears this, as does McCree. The ninja steps forward, staring up at the ceiling as if he thought Athena might be manifesting physically. “Then where is he?”

“Agent Hanzo is no longer within a five kilometer search radius.”

McCree set his hat on the table, pulling the rainsoaked serape off after. “Did he leave the ship?”

“Agent Hanzo exited Aircraft S3-497 twenty-two minutes, forty-seven seconds ago.”

“That was when we arrived,” Jack says. No one in the ship dares to move.

“He would not have been able to leave the search radius so quickly,” Genji states after a moment, “there is no way that he could have.”

Jesse’s heart is pounding in his chest, his fingers dipping into his pocket, gently touching the scarf. “Athena, when did Hanzo last respawn?”

“Agent Hanzo has not respawned.”

+++

The hours fade into days. The days bleed into weeks. Weeks become a month. Winston has all but deactivated the respawn system and Athena is working herself into overdrive as they tirelessly try to find a way to extract Hanzo from the system.

Jesse feels helpless.

There is nothing that he can do to assist Winston and the AI, and he all but fades from Gibraltar as he desperately tries to convince himself that they will succeed in bringing Hanzo back. It doesn’t work all too well. Aside from bringing Winston coffee and asking him if there is anything that he can do to help, which there never is, Jesse feels like he’s all but gone mad at this point.

“Short of deactivating the system, we’ve tried all that we can do.”

“And what happens if you deactivate it?”

Winston removes his glasses, rubbing the lenses between two careful fingers. “There is a small chance that once we restart it, we can refresh the respawn cycle and Hanzo will materialize here in the base.”

“Only a small chance?” McCree’s fingers touch the ends of Hanzo’s scarf, which he has chosen to wear prettily tied around his mechanical forearm.

“It.. is a very small chance. Approximately .013% chance that it will work.” Winston slides the glasses back onto his face, his eyes dark and tired. He looks over at McCree before looking down at the coffee cup in his hand, setting it on the desk. He doesn’t drink it. “Of course.. I would leave that decision up to you and Genji.” He picks up the coffee mug again, bringing it to his lips. “But.. if we do this, and it doesn’t work, we will have eliminated his pattern from the buffer, and there won’t be any going back. It’s the end for Hanzo if that happens.”

“And if you don’t try?”

“His biological pattern has already started to deteriorate; if we don’t get him back now, we might not ever be able to.”

Genji doesn’t even need convincing when McCree explains it to him, and they are thus in agreement. “It is worth the risk,” Genji had said, and Jesse agreed.

The sound of the system powering down chills Jesse’s heart, making him shake at the knees. Genji’s visor has been removed, his eyes glinting in the faint moonlight that filters through the windows. They wait silently, and Winston waits for Athena to restart the system.

It seems too long to wait.

The lights flicker, and Athena’s voice announces the system reboot. Winston’s fingers type furiously across the keyboard, bringing up the panel for the respawn control. Jesse’s stomach feels sick, his forehead slick with sweat as he watches, not even daring to speak.

“Initiating respawn process -- activating respawn pattern: Agent Hanzo Shimada.”

Jesse furiously tells himself that the silence is normal. The lack of activity is normal. The long wait time is normal. Everything is normal. Everything is according to plan.

Winston’s pause in typing worries him; the quick typing to make up for it worries him even further.

And then the silence.

Genji walks wordlessly from the room.

Winston says nothing, only stares at the monitor in what looks to be sheer defeat.

Jesse nearly collapses to the floor right then and there.

He somehow leaves the lab on his own two feet, stumbling his way back to the dorms. He feels numb, his heart in his toes, his words in his stomach. His room, _their_ room, is all that he now has left.

Scooping one of Hanzo’s kyudo-gi from the floor, Jesse holds it close to his chest, smelling the sake and smoke that he knew would fade away with time, and he would never smell again. He doesn’t cry, knowing that if he does, he won’t be able to stop.

Six bullets. Endless apologies.

 _It should have been me_ , he tells himself over and over, _he took the bullet she fired at me. I should be the one trapped in the system, not Hanzo. Anyone but Hanzo_.

His thoughts do not help; they only make it worse.

Jesse cries into the soft fabric, his hand gripping his mechanical arm, feeling the ribbon under his fingertips. It’s all he has left.

**Author's Note:**

> I've created a social hub on Discord for Overwatch writers!! You are free to stop in to get help with your writing, find beta readers or translators, and meet your fellow Overwatch writer peers in the process!! Click this link to join: [https://discord.gg/owg](https://discord.gg/tHs6R38/)


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